Hey, so it’s been a while huh?
Sorry about the long time without any update. Writing these is always a little daunting for me, so I end up avoiding it most of the time. That being said, I didn’t decide to post here today just to address the lack of updates lately. I’m also posting here because, a few weeks ago, I traveled all the way to Washington DC to showcase Space Punk Slam Dunk as MAGFest, and I thought I’d do a little post-mortem of my preparations for the event!
First off, I had to prepare the booth. Due to some communication friction between the organisers and me (some of it my fault admittedly) I was a bit late to organize everything in time for the event. Most of the trouble I experience came from the fact that I didn’t know for sure how big our booth was going to be for a long time, so I had to wait until the very last minute to order our banners. Then, I also had to scrap our plans to distribute bookmarks and sell posters at the event since I couldn’t find a printing service that could deliver those in time (the place I ordered the banners from doesn’t do posters or bookmarks). So, in order to get everything together, I had to borrow banner stands from a previous employer of mine, cover the banners that were already embedded in them with shower curtains (I couldn’t simply remove them because they were encased in the stand itself) and I also had to tape our own banners directly on the shower curtains. I also ended up having to buy some tablecloths that didn’t match the game’s colors, so it was all very great. However, once the whole thing was put together at the event, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t look pretty good considering the deadline and the means I had (did I mention I had to fly all of that equipment in from Canada?)
Not too bad right?
Then, for how the actual event went. I have to say; the whole thing was an absolute blast! I got to meet up with rj irl which was super cool. I also got to know a few other developers who had him make music for their games. Those games are called Unbeatable and Impact Resonance btw, and they’re both pretty great. I also want to emphasize that rj was working on
three different games that got showcased at MAGFest. I don’t think I’ve ever met a person as prolific as him, which I’m sure will come handy for other aspects of this game, like marketing and publishing.
Another major takeaway from the festival was the metric ton of feedback I was able to gather from people on how to improve the game. Watching this many people play what I had of a game from start to finish was an experience I’ll never forget, even if it was extremely tiring to man a booth for close to 7 hours straight. I honestly think we got out of there with a much more solid vision for this project, which speaks volumes about how important playtesting is to any game. I’ve already organized all the feedback we got into a Trello board, which I’ll be working off of with rj to keep track of what we need to do from now on.
Another thing that happened is that I stayed up until like 3 am on the second night of the event making changes to the game on the show floor, along with the Unbeatable team who was working on their own updated demo. I would not recommend doing that ever
The whole thing went relatively smoothly from then on though, and I was able to let the demo run almost autonomously on the 3rd and 4th day. Then, at the end of the fourth day, I packed up my stuff, got back on my plane to Canada, and made it home at about 1 am on the night before I started University again! The next day was not a productive on, let me tell you that.
But on a more serious note, the entire event was breathtaking. I’m sure I haven’t done it justice just by talking about it here, but I’ll remember everything that happened in those four days forever, and I honestly think it was a life altering experience. I know people don’t usually mention this sort of thing, but I’m also very thankful that the circumstances I live in allowed me to even go there. Traveling all the way to an event in a different country where I showcased something I’d been working on for about a year and a half was a gigantic privilege, and I’d feel ungrateful if I didn’t mention how much I appreciate that this is something I could do, especially when not everyone is as lucky as I was.
Anyway, to end this recap of my MAGFest experience, I’d like to post a little video playthrough of the demo version of the game that was playable at the event since I feel like I’ve kept you guys in the dark long enough about the state of the game. So, enjoy some freshly baked gameplay footage:
Anyway, thanks for reading, and hopefully these updates get posted with a bit more regularity. And who knows, maybe in a few months I’ll have even more to say about other events and such!
Cheers!
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